Disqualified former Olympic Chinese badminton player Yu Yang quit the sport on Wednesday in a very modern Chinese way: through her microblog. And she also offered a glimpse of the mind frame of the players who caused an international stir with their uninspired play.

On Wednesday, badminton officials disqualified eight players from the women’s badminton Olympic competition in London after they determined that the athletes had thrown matches in order to get easier opponents in the next round. Among the eight women, two were Chinese. Ms.Yu and teammate Wang Xiaoli, as well as Chinese badminton official Liu Fengyan and team manager Li Yongbo, apologized, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

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China’s Yu Yang hit a return during their women’s doubles group play on Tuesday. Yu has quit badminton, she told her Chinese microblog.

Late on Wednesday, Ms. Yu turned to her verified Tencent Weibo microblogging account and appeared to put the sport of badminton behind her. “This is my last game,” she said, adding “bye my beloved badminton.”

She explained her behavior in a subsequent post.

“We were just injured, and only chose to take advantage of the rules to give up,” she wrote, without elaborating on the injury issue. “We did this just to be better in the knockout round. This is the first time that group round-robin elimination was adopted in the Olympics…do you understand players get injured? We prepared for four years with injuries, and you disqualified us. You ruined our dream mercilessly. It’s that simple. It’s not that complicated, but it’s unforgivable.”

The issue exploded on the Chinese-language Internet, with posters on Tencent rival Sina Weibo undertaking more than 15.4 million searches on the subject and starting 1.62 million discussions within 24 hours. The term “the national badminton team lost games on purpose” ranked No.2 on the hot topic list of Chinese Internet search service Baidu.com, with more than 31,000 searches.

Newspapers on Thursday were still focused on the story of Ye Shiwen, China’s new swimming superstar. But on their inside pages they lamented the scandal. China Youth Daily questioned what it called China’s gold obsession and how the scandal has “pricked the Olympic nerves.”

On the Internet, many posters expressed sympathy for the two athletes and resentment toward the team leader and China’s sports machine. In a poll conducted by Sina Weibo, 4,122 respondents said the players “adopted a reasonable tactic,” while a little more than half that number said passive play “goes against the Olympic spirit.” (Vote in a WSJ.com poll on the same subject.)

“Why should we apologize? How can they analyze a competitive tactic from the perspective of morality?” said one Weibo user posting under the name of Sad Rainfall.

“The two teams need to improve their acting skill a bit more in the future. They acted so badly. But the most disgusting thing is how the leaders of national team explain all this,” said one Weibo user under the name of Little Big Head Girl. “Poor athletes. They are always the puppets of the nation and victims of this terrible system.”

“It is those who set the rules who should be punished. Who can make it up for these athletes and their four years of hard work?” said one Weibo user. “Sincere sympathy goes to those athletes who got punished.”

Some wondered about the “sour grape” effect, the term some on the Chinese Internet use for perceived resentment in the West for China’s sizable medal haul during the games. “This is just because they are jealous of the capability of the Chinese badminton team,” said one Weibo user named Qiu Te.

“So disgusting. How could you do that? Why do you play these tricks instead of telling us that you are jealous of China?” said another.

The scandal also triggered debates among public figures in state media outlets. Bai Yansong, a prominent news anchor on state-run China Central Television, also defended the athletes while criticizing the system. “Out-of-date competition rules and unreasonable arrangements lead to athletes competing against their teammates at early round, ” said Mr. Bai. “The rules need to be revised instead of just scolding the athletes.”

Yang Ming, a reporter of Xinhua, put more of the onus on the athletes.

“Gold medals are important, but Olympic spirit and morality in sports are even more important,” he said.

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